The walls feel like they are closing in on me and I can’t breathe without making a strange choking sound. The tears come again. I fall backward onto the bed and I let them fall. Noiseless but no less powerful, I rage internally against the unfairness of it all. Why me? Why again? Was it not enough for me to live with the fear of death hanging over me once? To have my body sliced open and bits that had turned against me like mutinous sailors be removed, carted off to some laboratory to be biopsied and then incinerated like a grim rehearsal, before the rest of me followed in the same manner? To be pumped so full of drugs I barely recognized my own reflection in the mirror, that of some bloated, bald woman who bore more resemblance to a corpse in some B-grade horror movie than the person I was?

Just enough time had passed for me to relax a little, let my guard down and the fear that followed me around dissipate. I let myself think I was in the clear, enjoying life. But now here I am, face-to-face with my own mortality again, only this time there is a limited amount of sand in the hourglass and it’s trickling away fast.

I don’t know how long I spend curled up in the fetal position, mourning a simpler time and the innocent person I was, but eventually I remember why I am here, and that there are people present just for me. They don’t know why I have disappeared. To them I am simply being rude. So I turn the light back on and uncurl. Yesterday, those twinges in my back and legs would barely have registered. Today, I know they are a symptom of the beginning of the end of me.

My reflection in the mirror is not great, but it’ll have to do. I’m not the kind of girl who carries spare makeup around with her for touch-ups. I wipe the tears from my face with my hands and dry them on my dress. Yesterday, this dress consumed an inordinate amount of my thoughts. Was it OK for the party? Dressy enough? Not so dressy it looked like I was heading out for cocktails afterward? Now it feels like a stupid waste of thought. I could have spent that time cloud-watching, or reading a good book, or writing a letter to the pen pal I haven’t thought of or written to in over ten years. Assuming she’s still at the same address. The point is I could have spent that time doing something meaningful instead of worrying about whether my outfit looked good or not. I had learned that the first time, but somewhere over the couple of years I had slipped back into old habits. It’s easy to spout off the catchphrases—“Life is short,” “Live every moment as if it’s your last”—but truly maintaining that kind of life long-term is exhausting.

I’m turning to the door when something white catches my eye. A picture, pinned to my dream board. Another thing I’d left in my haste to leave the nest and flex my budding adulthood.